My 221 Amazon Estate project

[Uncle Benz]

Bottom pic is her. Top one isn’t I think

Thanks for finding the pics though! Great to see her in one piece!

[Uncle Benz]

Regarding the shims, I have a good pile of various sizes. I set up camber and castor on race cars in my shop a lot, so I should be fine setting it up

[Uncle Benz]

I got a little more done today. I finished up the paint in the engine bay







And applied some underbody Schutz with waxoyl to the inner arches



I fitted new bushes to the front upper arm fixings and bolted the arms on with the U bolts



I also fitted new inner bushes to the front lower arms. They are fiddly!

[Derek UK]

Looking at the pics again I can confirm that the top pic is Cadnam but not the bottom one. John will I expect be able to say where the bottom one is but I thought they were the same car. Yes John is dressed differently and the Cadnam one shows a roof rack. I was at the Cadnam one but maybe not the other one. These are from John's pic collection.
Nice work showing in the new pictures.

[Uncle Benz]

A bit more detail on the front suspension lower arm bushes. These are what I call a “top hat bush”. I have a great tool for pulling/pushing metalastic bushes in and out. It’s basically a long screw thread with a selection of sleeves and collars to fit most bushes you will find. Getting them out was easy, my tool dragged them out with minimal effort. Putting the new ones in was another story! They wanted to twist, and wouldn’t seat squarely to start in the holes. I gently ground a very small lead on the edge of the outer metal case with the bench grinder, but they still wanted to go skew whiff rather than pull in square. In the end I moved away from the screw tool and used the press. I cobbled together a sleeve to fit closely in the opposite hole and using the original through-bolt as a guide through the middle of the bush to keep it square managed to press the bush into place. I did it four times from that point, so the method works. I’ll try to get some pictures tomorrow of how I did it.

[Uncle Benz]

Originally Posted by Derek UK

Looking at the pics again I can confirm that the top pic is Cadnam but not the bottom one. John will I expect be able to say where the bottom one is but I thought they were the same car. Yes John is dressed differently and the Cadnam one shows a roof rack. I was at the Cadnam one but maybe not the other one. These are from John's pic collection.
Nice work showing in the new pictures.

Top car does look blue. It has head rests on the front seats and the doors do not have wing mirrors fitted. Wing mirrors are instead fitted on the front wings. I don’t think its the same car.

[Uncle Benz]

Just to add, those wing mirrors on the doors are hideous!! I don’t have them with the car (thank goodness!!), but may need some advice in finding something more appropriate to fit there!

[Uncle Benz]

I had an uninterrupted six hours today. Started off refitting the steering box and relay

b



I then decided to have a look at the front subframe. I contemplated rolling around on the floor and wrestling with springs for a good thirty seconds before deciding to fit the subframe to the car first, and work on it there. I used the pit jack to carefully raise it into position and bolted it in with new locking tab washers.



From here it was easy to install the long through-bolts and hang the lower arms.



It helps that I had already cleaned and prepared all the parts, so it was a simple case of just putting it all together.

[Uncle Benz]

Caliper brackets, steering arms and disc backplates fitted next...





Also had a chat on the phone with my pal Rob, the painter. He's just completed a BMW E9 CSL race car and is looking for another job. He's very keen to get the car over to his shop, shut the doors and sink his teeth into it. I can see him badgering me to hurry up!

[Uncle Benz]

Rob's last job. Hubba Hubba!